The North East has a well-documented history of radical discourse and it gives rise to an event Live Theatre is hosting in partnership with the New Statesman magazine.
It takes the form of a panel discussion focusing on the question The Radical North East: Is This Our Moment?
It is timed, of course, to whet the appetite for Live Theatre’s forthcoming co-production of Our Friends in the North with Newcastle-based Eastlake Productions and the Theatre Royal, where it is to be staged from October 15 to 24.
Peter Flannery’s play – turned into the famous BBC TV drama series which has been the inspiration for this new adaptation 30 years on – spanned decades, taking in regional and national politics, industrial unrest, police corruption and all manner of dodgy dealings.
It presented the region as a ferment of radical thinking, building on a colourful history that has given us plaques, statues, a wealth of challenging archival material (peruse the shelves of the Lit & Phil to get a flavour) and perhaps a certain nonconformist attitude.
Among those speaking at the event on Friday, September 11 (8pm) will be North East Mayor Kim McGuinness, Middlesbrough playwright Ishy Din and cultural commentator Alex Niven, author of The North Will Rise Again.
It will be chaired by Tom McTague, New Statesman editor in chief.
Is this our moment? You’ll have to be there to find out and tickets are on sale (tenner a time) from the Live Theatre box office.
Meanwhile this famous crucible of radical theatre has taken the wraps off an autumn season of wide-ranging appeal.
It opens with Newcastle playwright Alison Carr’s latest, All At Sea, a boat-rocking dark comedy inspired by the notorious ‘canoe man’ insurance scam of 2002.
It runs from September 24 until October 10 before transferring to Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre – and you can find out more from Sam Wonfor’s interview with Alison.
There’s more comedy to be had in Tits Up! by Alison Stanley and Leah Bell, a play which first saw light of day at Laurels in Whitley Bay.
But there’s a serious backdrop to this story about Tina, Rachel and Rosie, three very different women brought together by breast cancer.
The show by Entertainment Unlimited and Stanley Creatives is billed as “powerfully funny and deeply moving” and concerned with “life, choices and the bonds that get us through”.
It calls in at Live Theatre on October 13 on an autumn tour which begins at the Customs House, South Shields, on October 1.
There will be two performances (October 16 and 17) of No Apologies, written and performed by Emma Frankland, an award winning writer, theatre maker and performer who describes her work as often “playfully destructive and gloriously irreverent”.
Marlborough Productions, based on the south coast, of which Frankland is an associate artist, sends out this “spectacular collision between theatre and grunge”.
Live call it “a radical, queer mis-remembering of Nirvana’s iconic 1993 MTV Unplugged concert”, hailing it as both “urgent and politically sharp” and “witty and emotionally powerful”.
Lyn Gardner, in The Stage. Called it “ruddy gorgeous”. Was Kurt Cobain trans? Did he really wish he’d been born female? Who better than Frankland to ask the questions?
Popular female comedy troupe Your Aunt Fanny return and wrap up the month (October 29-31) with Crease, an hour of sketches with “real characters, absurd scenarios and impeccable wordplay”.
November brings play readings, including a pair of hits that seemed at one time to be permanently touring.
First there’s The Vagina Monologues by V, new moniker of American writer Eve Ensler, on November 5 and 6, and then comes Stones In His Pockets, the comedy by Belfast-born Marie Jones, on November 7.
A mini-series of readings from across ‘the Pond’ follows, representing a selection of what Live are calling “ground-breaking diverse American voices”.
Topdog/Underdog, a “darkly comic fable of brotherly love and family identity” by Suzan-Lori Parks, opens proceedings on November 11 and 12.
The play, which opened off-Broadway in 2001 and had a run at London’s Royal Court Theatre in 2003, won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Then, on November 14, there’s John, by another Pulitzer winner, Annie Baker, which premiered in 2015 and tells of a struggling Brooklyn couple navigating the painful dissolution of their relationship.
The play My Name Is Rachel Corrie recalls the 23-year-old American activist who was killed by an armoured bulldozer operated by the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) when trying to prevent Palestinian homes being demolished.
Her death in 2003 caused an international outcry. The play, fashioned from Rachel’s diaries and emails by the late actor Alan Rickman and journalist Katherine Viner, who now edits The Guardian, has had a predictably chequered history.
It opened at the Royal Court Theatre in 2005 when it won awards. But a proposed transfer to New York resulted in the theatre there postponing it “indefinitely” for what it deemed political content.
Critic Michael Billington, in The Guardian, called it “a stunning account of one woman’s passionate response to a particular situation” and said theatre had a duty to be honest but no obligation to give a complete picture.
A Canadian reviewer called it “an excellent piece of polemic”.
It comes to Newcastle in a much praised production from Manchester’s Take Back Theatre, in association with The Dukes, Lancaster, and with Harriet Bibby playing Rachel.
Then, in a blink, Christmas will be upon us.
The Suggestibles’ devised-on-the-spot Impro Pantso returns on December 17 and 18, as does family show Where Do All The Kittiwakes Go At Christmas? (this time in Live’s main auditorium) from December 19 to 31.
Find details of all these shows and more on the Live Theatre website.